You find all these endless build threads too complicated? You are overwhelmed by contradictory advice from other players? You don't want to have to consider tons of different aspects? You simply want a build that works?

One escort build, one cruiser build. Which ship to fly, which gear to get, which BO abilities to use, how to spec your captain and how to setup your keybinds. No "you could do A, but not unless you also want B - otherwise it would be better to go with a mix of C and D". Just a simple "build this and fly it".

As a bonus there is a PvEscort build that will get your character - no matter whether Sci, Eng or Tac - through the STFs and other PVE content as fast as possible.

(A science ship build might come at a later point - or not at all.)

Version History:

2012-11-17: changed gear suggestions to reduce dilithium cost of the sample builds and added a new section about gear to adress some of the changes in S7

2012-09-21: the THG is now available at hilbertguide.com

2012-08-03: the "Fleet Escort" is now called "Patrol Escort"

2012-06-20: changed the PvEscort's weaponry to phasers (no need to change your weapons if you have the previous setup)

2012-05-14: added a PvEscort build for STFs, added some "Pro-Tips" for optional BO layouts that are not available from the BO trainer

2012-04-14: made minor adjustments to the spec (no need to respec if you have the previous version) and the cruiser console setup

Thanks for your guide. I still can't get the tray 7 keybindings for the spcebar to work. I thought I followed you instructions correctly. When I click on "spacebar.txt" all I get is a page with the commands on it, no actual "file". What do I do with it? Do I put it in a word file and name it spacebar.txt and also where exactly do I put it. Int the STO Online/Live folder?

Your browser will show the contents of the file because it is a simple text file. So once you have opened the link and see the commands in your browser, you can use "save page as ..." (or whatever that command is called in your browser) to save the file to STO's Live directory. The path to that folder is given in the guide; it will be different if you have STO via Steam though.

You need to make sure that the file is saved correctly as "spacebar.txt". So if you have hidden file extensions (the Windows default setting), you don't need to add ".txt" to the filename when you save it, otherwise you will create a file that is actually called "spacebar.txt.txt" on the file system level.